Requiem for the Living
by malfunctionjunction
Summary: Because they were too stubborn for death, Azula kept them alive.


**A/N: **This potential plot has been egging me on. I decided to do it, finally. Azula is a character that I have never written before. Please tell me in a review if you like it or not, it is greatly appreciated.

**Pairings**: It's not directly stated, but hinted.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko own ATLA. I am only a fan. In other words: No, you dang lawyers, don't sue me!

* * *

She moved. She stumbled. She tripped. She didn't fall. She refused to give way, not then, but her body ached for it. The moon above her, hidden by the clouds of night, mocked her. Her pale, cracked lips pressed into a dangerous and feral sneer; anger cornered lips, angered from its rounding persistence. Beneath her, the tender earth scraped and bruised her feet, leaving many scars that weren't there before. The energy that swam through her body quickly evaporated, and it fell into the earth. It sunk and sunk until it was devoured whole by the earth, forever lost to her.

Strength withdrew from her legs. Her body collapsed on the soft, energy depriving earth. She withered and arched her back; the pain inside her body constricted closer and closer together. Her nails, chipped and not, dug into the soil of the earth. They dug deeply, so deeply, that blood began to shed from the corners. The pain she felt in her fingers could not compare from the agony the rest of her body was succumbing to. She rolled onto her stomach, she rolled onto her back again, and she raised one, soil covered hand into the sky. Her golden eyes stared at the hand that clenched into a fist, rubbles of dirt landed on her face.

For a moment, a brief moment, she was left in a solid reprieve. Her breathing and heartbeats, were on edge and unsafe. She closed her eyes, hoping to fall into the darkness, but she knew the darkness was only temporarily. It was temporary. There was no forewarning, but she felt it rising. Her nails dug into the soil again, and her lips peeled open to release a soundless cry of agony. Left to right she moved her body, twisting in her turns but ensuring her legs were spread far apart. Blood caressed the sides of her unblemished legs, and in between her unblemished legs her folds were quickly torn into two, but she refused to let herself cry. She refused to howl in defeat to the pain that had erupted within her body.

She arched her back upwards, and it curved in an arch heading in the direction of the pain. While she had been desperately holding back previously, an attempt to force the inevitable into submission, she felt it sliding out of her, ripping through her. Sweat trailed the lines of her face, and it beaded the top of her forehead. Soundless creams carved her mouth, but her grunts and groans were heard in the echoes of the forest. Slowly, steadily, the liquid from her body, a mixture of fluid and blood, poured out of her. Beings that had taken time growing, parasites that thrived within her womb eased their way out of her.

All but soreness remained.

Before she comprehended what had occurred, what had happened to her, what had changed, she ignored the blood and umbilical cords that stained and remained inside her. Legs, her own legs, moved of their own accord, but her hands, her arms, scooped up the small bundles and rushed to a body of water that she hadn't noticed until then. She didn't hesitate in her movements; she ignored the mocking moon, she ignored her conscience, and she dropped the two bundles in the water, before they could breathe, before they could scream.

_Take them. Take them away. _The water wrapped itself around the bundles, and they pulled and pulled, deeper and deeper. She didn't stay to see it, she didn't stay to witness. Again, her feet were moving, away from the scene and the evidence. Slowly, her body trudged against the forces of nature and time. Her memories began to darken and fade, extorting them into a fateful and dark place, the memory of what had happened crumbled before her eyes. It had stained her mind, forever staining.

Time had passed.

But not too much time.

She had paused at an old tree. One hand fell on it, leaning on it for balance. That was when she heard the sound.

A lazy golden eye turned around, and she had anticipated it was her anxiety, her broken mind that delighted in playing cruel tricks on her. Several meters away, close to gently rocking waves, two bundles of flesh were firmly planted in the soil of the earth. Specs of water, drops of life were on their clean, naked bodies. Any trace of blood and gore had been cleansed from their infant forms. Their fingers and feet kicked stubbornly in the air, but it was the cry, the demanding scream that pounded into her ears was the piece that coerced her to turn around fully. Her legs and her feet, legs and feet that had ran, moved away from them, were inexplicably returning to them. Her hands reached out to the small bundles, and she fell, for the first time, near them.

She was worn, and she was tired. Her senses began to fail her. She heard the voice. She felt the mushiness of their bodies.

_Keep them. Keep them as your own._

The light of the moon descended on the three. Her eyes slowly closed, but she fought to keep them apart. As weakness and darkness swallowed her whole, a small, chubby finger wrapped itself firmly around her malnourished and bony one.

Azula couldn't tell which one of her children had done it, but she prayed to the gods that it had been the girl.

* * *

_The boy..._

Xin was the one who appeared to need her the most. Sullen, thoughtful, but not a weakling, he held no qualms in using necessary violence. Azula was proud and dissatisfied with it, for the boy was incapable of masking his true emotions. She blamed that on her lenient parentings skills, but did not hold back at pointing the blame at the absent father. Part of the blame, a blame that always remained fresh, was directed at the absent uncle as well. Signs of weakness weren't appreciated or tolerated, not out of herself and not of her brood.

He was talented. It was something Azula wasn't reluctant to admit.

_The girl..._

Jiao needed her as well, but not as much as Xin. She too was sullen, thoughtful, but not a weakling, there had been many instances when bliss visibly flooded her in observing others' pain. Azula knew that as the girl's primary caregiver and mother, she should've felt some sort of panic from the visible creases of sadistic tendencies. On the contrary, a malformed vision of pride swelled within her chest, and a bitter chuckle of remembrance exited her mouth as she worked. Signs of weakness hardly exhibited itself on the girl, but moments existed outside the layer of skin. She didn't appreciate weakness, any sign of weakness.

She was talented. It was something Azula wasn't reluctant to admit.

One day, Jiao approached her in the back room. The summer had been cruel that year, and the fields were treading towards a new harvest. The girl moved cautiously, like she had been taught, and her eyes were pulled downcast as she stepped closer to the woman. Azula felt the questioning in her movements, and stopped sharply in the middle of her work, graining the oats.

"What are you doing, Onna?" Eyes that had seen six years of life peeked over her shoulder but remained at a distance, "Shouldn't you be _not _working?"

Azula didn't stop in her constant pace. "Why do you say that, child?"

If she had been more like her brother, Jiao would've jumped lightly at the tone of her mother's voice, she remained still, defiant. "The farmer and his wife said that we shouldn't be graining anything until later in the year. They want to preserve the goods."

"Oh," she refused to show recognition in her body and continued on, "is that so?"

Her eyes narrowed, "The only reason they keep you is because of Xin and I. If we weren't here, you would be living on the streets."

Azula's eyes were focused on the threading of the grain. Once the grain threading had been completed, she planned to send the share the farmer and his wife deserved. "Yes, you should thank the moon goddess for sparing your lives then, because I am not as merciless as she."

"I am...," she searched for the words, "aware of that. But either way, you would be lost without us."

_Damn child, see too much and knows too much. _"Where is Xin? Shouldn't you be with him, doing what six year old children do?" She waved her flippantly at the child, a gesture that had been taken as a leave. Out of the corner of the eye, she saw that Jiao was still where she stood; a frown of displeasure fell on her face.

"Jiao," she stressed, "leave now."

"Xin is playing some sort of game with the boys." She toyed with a loose strand of hair, "I have no business taking part in it."

This piqued Azula's interests. Half of her face revealed itself to the girl. "Why is that?"

"Because there is nothing to gain from it," she shrugged, "it all seems pointless really. You kick a ball into a goal, then what? There is no prize, no triumph."

Azula rolled her eyes and scoffed at the ignorance of the child. "Have I not taught you anything?" The perplexed look that appeared on her face made Azula fly into one of her rants, "Honestly, don't you pay attention at all?"

"It depends on what you are saying."

The frown that touched Azula's face made Jiao take an alerted step back, but it didn't deter the woman from moving from her table, latching onto the girl's hand and heading to the front door. Outside, she heard the small cries of excitement and determination in the neighborhood's children, but she couldn't identify the cry that belonged to her own. The girl wiggled in her grip, trying to release herself, but Azula was strong. By time they had reached the front door, the girl had fallen into the routine, and one sharpened nail pointed to the scene.

"Do you see that?" She jerked Jiao, "Do you see what he is doing?"

Xin moved about the boys, his footsteps danced in defensive and offensive strikes. The ball was kicked from one boy to the other, but it always returned to him. Hair the color of coal flew loosely at his shoulders; his face was hidden behind a mask of determination. Jiao felt her arm go limp in her Azula's arm, and she bit back the cry from the pain as the nails dug into her skin, piercing through the thin fabric of her clothing.

"He is strategizing." Azula's eyes wavered from Jiao to Xin, "He is using his knowledge against his opponents, which is something you must learn. You are impulsive and brash. It is imperative you learn to use strategy and manipulation before anything else. Use your knowledge to defeat them."

Jiao's face showed the face of a child who was beginning to contemplate the words that had been spoken to her. Her brow furrowed in thought, and she licked her lips, fighting off the dryness. "How do I learn?"

"Pay attention in class." As an afterthought, "Listen to those who know better."

That was where she left the girl, returning to the back room of their small home. "Tell Xin it's getting late. I want him inside by sun down, the same goes for you, dinner will be ready soon."

Jiao opened her mouth to say, "_You haven't begun to cook_," but something silenced her. It was pointless either way. She leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed, and frown present. She watched without words and action as her brother played and maneuvered. She inhaled the movements and miniscule details of her observations, and thus, she began to learn.

* * *

Nature's course hadn't intended to make Azula into a mother. She wasn't meant to nurture, and she positively lacked the instinctive maternal actions and thoughts that came along with bearing children.

For the first months of their lives, she had refused to touch them.

For the first years of their lives, she refused to be called by the endearment.

For the remaining years of her life, she would refuse to be called by the endearment.

Somehow, the small family managed to live with what they had been given. Although, Azula could never truly appreciate or accept the givings, she had learned to live with it.

"I think it's hard to believe," Xin said around the dinner table, "that Fire Lady was once a princess, don't you Jiao?"

"Yeah." She popped a piece of bread into her mouth, "Onna-chan isn't like any princess I've heard before. She's nasty, mean, ill tempered too. What kind of princess is that?"

Xin thought it over before answering, "The Fire Nation must've wanted that in a princess, right Lady?"

In front of the children, Azula quietly ate her rice. When she was questioned, she raised her eyes, and the two children flinched at the severity shown in them. "Yes, the Fire Nation required a strong, noble warrior as its princess. Now, all they have is a _spineless_ Lord and his _barren_ wife."

Xin poked at his food, "You shouldn't talk about Fire Lady Mai like that, Lady. I heard that she's nice and real pretty too."

"I heard she gives food to the poor," Jiao added with a sigh, "I'll like to meet her someday, to see what she's all about."

"Trust me," she entered their conversation, "she's as plain as plain gets. Her lack of emotion is only backed by her lack of common sense. My brother was an absolute fool to marry her. Marry out of love and your heart is crushed, a traitor such as that does not deserve the goodness that has been bestowed upon her."

The children exchanged bewildered glances at each other. Azula had refused on more than one occasion to indulge them in the many truths of her past. The rumors and legends had spread a long way into the Earth Kingdom, and all they could do is wait patiently until she gave them what they wanted.

"What?" She barked after several moments, "Finish your food so we can train. I do not have all night!"

They hastily returned to their meals. They were cautious not to raise their eyes out of the pronounce fear that she would see them, which she would have if they had done so.

* * *

Azula too possessed fears, and she would not speak, admit, to those fears. But one fear, maybe two, was that the children she had brought to life would possess the ability to bend the composite. What she wanted was fire benders, not the opposite, and she was deeply troubled in the beginning years of their lives to see no signs of bending abilities. At age four she had nearly scorched the lower half of the palace; at age four Jiao and Xin had shown keen interests in water and its surrounding elements.

First, came the distress. It was natural.

Second, rose the anger. The disgruntled and barely concealed anger that erupted at the slightest mention, _reminder_, that the children had not yet developed their bending abilities.

Fortunately, very much so, at age six Xin had shown some strength. The strength was an almost invisible, smoldering spec, but it was there. By chance she had seen him, due to Xin being fretful until he was absolutely sure, but she had. Near the market area, he had been playing with his group of friends, and they were using sticks. A spec of fire revealed itself to her while she had been shopping, and she pounced on it, immediately beginning his training that day. He gained no pleasure with detaching from his friends, but Azula rarely considered his feelings and opinions. His feelings weren't to be considered the second the fire bending gene triumphed over its composite. It was only a matter of time until Jiao's bending abilities developed, and Azula hoped that the time would be soon.

Azula couldn't envision an opposite diversion to the path of fire bending.

"Lady, Onna, Azula!" His feet were strong and heavy in spite of their size, "Azula, Azula!" She wouldn't have responded if it weren't for the urgency in his voice and how his feet rocked the floors as he ran.

Peering from the back room where she worked, she glared icily at him, but the terror stricken expression on his face caused her anger to dissipate before it could reach him. Suddenly, her eyes sharpened, and she stared at him and then to the outside door that was only a few feet away. For an inexplicable reason, she felt her chest constrict, and unsettling concern struck her, "Where is Jiao?"

Azula commanded to the boy to stay at the shack that they called home. She also told him to inform anyone who arrived for her that she would return shortly. As the flames grew stronger in the distance and her feet slammed harder and harder through adrenaline, Azula doubted that she would be returning any time soon. Then again, Azula never told the truth; her lies were as pure as her heart. The crowd of people that circled the crops annoyed her; they were doing nothing to help, but the flames were growing quickly. Inside her heart she worried that if she could do anything either.

"What the hell happened?" Her eyes darted to the farmer's wife who owned the land they lived on, "Where's Jiao?"

"We were...we were...in the crops," the woman rattled, "and then there was a spark, and every thing set aflame, I got as many as I could, the children I mean. But Jiao, oh dear, she escaped me."

Azula didn't let the farmer's wife finished. She rushed into the flaming crops, despite the heard protests of the group, and fell into the fiery abyss that she was most familiar with. Ash and soot swept into her nose, and she called out to the girl who had been lost to her. The sandals she had worn were thinned out and weakened, torn to pieces, and the heat that surrounded her made her feel exhilarated. At the same time, the terrified but unrecognized possibility of death scrambled on in her brain.

"Damn it girl," she yelled, "if you're alive, say something!"

"If I do, you'll be madder than you are now!"

Anger was present in her voice, relief, but she appreciated. It was her anger, the panic, that swelled into her arms and legs. Once more she felt at home, at peace. Two hands were raised, and she moved in a stance that she had done many times in the years past. Reminding herself of the direction she heard the voice, and using the might she had been born with, she pulled the fire away from the specific area, to find Jiao standing in the middle of the carnage. Her eyes were wide with awe and fear; the muscles in her body weren't responding to its command to move.

"I thought-I wanted to be like Xin," she whispered into the crook of her neck as Azula ran out of the fire, "I didn't know it would be so big, I didn't know."

"_I'm sorry Azula. I really am."_

Her arms were wrapped tight around her neck, and by instinct, she would've shouted and berated the child for her childlessness. But she was a child, and she was afraid. Locked inside her heart, Azula had been afraid as well. Once the smoke had cleared and what could be salvaged had been, Azula was proud and relieved, mostly, to see that both of the children had been blessed with the ability to bend fire.

"I'm sorry Azula," she said over dinner a week after, "I'm sorry."

Azula chose not to explain the delighted smirk on her face. It caused Xin and Jiao to fear the worse, but she only laughed and left the table, leaving the children confused and wondering.

"_It has been a while._" A trail of blue flame slithered out her mouth, _"Must do it more often."_

* * *

To the people of the village that existed on the outskirts of the Earth Kingdom, near Ba Sing Se, she was a woman of Fire Nation descent who entered the humble village in a mysterious manner while carrying two, crying infants. She had lost everything, they presumed, and they pitied her. It was the farmer who owned the majority of land in the village that offered her a home, some land, and a small plot to work with.

To Xin and Jiao, she was Azula, former princess of the Fire Nation, tyrant, provider, protector, teacher, and mother.

And though they never used the term mother, they had grown strangely attatched to calling her Lady, Onna, Demon (Jiao's favorite), Di (for appearance's sake) and Azula in private moments.

There were times, in the middle of the night, when the children felt that there had to be more to the story than what they had heard from the villagers. She could've been the sole female Fire Lord in Fire Nation history if she had been crowned. She tried to kill her brother, she was ruthless in her pursuit of the Avatar, and there was more to the list than what was already heard, they believed.

During their training, when they looked into her eyes, glowing with burning fierceness, they knew there was some truth to the rumors.

"_Azula is a scary woman."_

* * *

Xin knew when to sleep. Jiao knew when to stay awake.

Because they knew, they could feel when a change was shifting.

There were the instances, the tiny and insignificant instances when a thread would go unthreaded, or when her eyes glazed over with a foreign substance that told the children not sleep in the night.

An average mother, a wholesome mother, would have fainted at the concept to retell the tale of the attempted murder of their freshly born infants by her hands, but Azula wasn't. Casually, she stretched the story of their births out to them, and it was a blunt and detached tale to be heard from her lips. They listened with stunned ears, and they watched with believing eyes. For what she was said was unmistakably true, they knew the insanity that grazed about in her eyes at times, but they kept their faces neutral, undefined. Motionless to what they heard and imagined, they sucked in the truth like sponges, but inside their hearts they knew they could not hate her for it.

Ultimately, in fear of their own safety, but unwilling to let her go, they trapped themselves in their meager bedroom, door shut and locked. A lock that had been crafted by her hands, a lock that kept her out when she wasn't herself.

_**Burn. Drown. Kill them all.**_

_**I shall not fail!**_

_**You never loved me, Mother. Loved ZuZu more than me. Just a monster I am. Just a monster**_

_**They are mine...mine...you can't have them!**_

The glasses were broken. Clothes were torn. The pounding of her azure fists ripped on the walls; they rattled down the halls, reaching their bedroom with crazed devastation. In their beds, under the covers, they prayed and hoped that her azure breathing fists wouldn't burn the house down, wouldn't reach them. When morning finally arrived, they staggered out of bed and struggled to return her to her room without disturbance; the faintest noise would send her into a rage. Tears of sadness and other emotions that they were unable to comprehend, they were too young, trickled down the sides of her face. She murmured repeatedly, _Monster, Mother, Brother, Father_, and_ them_...they always came last. They didn't ask why; they refused to turn to the other, and yet they shared the same fearfully questioning looks.

Returned to their beds, snuggled in, and blankets up to their chins.

"_It wasn't as bad as last night."_

"_Yeah, but it could've been."_

* * *

Gratitude was a sentiment Azula found insanely difficult to understand. If she ever touched gratefulness, she hadn't realized it. But in the sight of the children, there were some things that Azula was inwardly grateful for, and one of them was that the children features of the Fire Nation were dominant on the children's faces. Black hair, although Jiao's was a definite mixture of dark brown and black, golden eyes, although Xin's eyes held small hints of light blue, and extremely fair complexions, but not as fair as Azula's own.

It wasn't the hair, the skin color, or the eyes that made Azula stare at Xin and Jiao carefully. Azula's face was striking, and the angles of her bones provided a firm but lovely structure. No, her children, the children, their faces were softer, rounding. The royal family of the Fire Nation never had soft, round faces, and she outwardly scowled at the angular similarities to that man.

That man...she bit her lip in anger...that bastard.

"Something wrong Lady?" Xin sat next to her, and he watched her prepare the evening meal, "You look...off."

"As far as you and your sister are concerned," she said bitterly, "I always look off."

"Yes, but you look more off today. You're thinking harder." He moved to her side; his fingers wrapped around the side of her dress, "Lots of things are wrong with you, we know, but something else is wrong, right?"

How she despised the ability he contained to read emotions more clearly than his sister.

How she snarled at his stubborn quest for knowledge.

"You look more like your father these days," she said to no one in particular, even though he stood right beside her, "in your eyes, in your manners. You look more like him."

His body stiffened besides her, but no words left his mouth. Uncertainly, he gazed upwards to her, and he felt an uneasy hopefulness begin to grow. She was unmoving; her eyes clouded with distant memories and her fingers crossed dangerously around the knife she was chopping the fish with. She remembered his taste. She remembered his breath. She remembered hands and how the crawled up her spine, rubbing gently on the knobs. His lips hovered on her neck, her cheeks, the line of her jaw, her most sensitive place. His arms wrapped protectively around her, during those brief months of solitude; she didn't dare speak of it, refused to acknowledge, but through that man, she had found a short lived peace.

She missed it.

"Di," he tugged on her dress, and her eyes fell on him, and the blueness of his eyes appeared stronger than the gold. "Di, are you...going to tell me?"

She didn't miss a beat, "How important is it? To know the truth, I mean."

Xin didn't let go of her dress. Instead, his small hands held tighter on her the fabric, and she felt the small tug of his nervousness but thinking brain. It had taken some time before he sighed and dropped his shoulders; Azula took his silence as confirmation.

"He doesn't mean that much to you, does he?" There wasn't a victorious smirk or menacing glare, but her lips drew a thin line of expectance. They shared a look, a look between mother and son, between sifu and pupil. His fingers uncurled from her dress, and a dark glare that she wasn't able to decipher crossed his face. She intended to respond to that; he reminded her too much of Jiao when he did that, and she didn't like it. He moved faster than she expected, and his dark look fluttered away as it was replaced with a fruitful smile.

"No, I guess he doesn't," he laughed, "he doesn't mean much to me at all."

He smiled another cheerful, goofy smile, and damn it, it reminded her of that man. He ran off outside to his sister, who was playing a kickball game with the villagers' children. She said nothing of it; she refused to acknowledge his life within the children. She would not deem it possible that his presence thrived in their veins.

_Damn him. Damn the bastard to the deepest pit of hell._

* * *

"I want a knife."

"I want a cake."

"A cake is stupid."

"A knife is juvenile!"

"You're stupid!"

"No, you're stupid and juvenile! What kind of girl would want a knife for her birthday!"

Azula turned around to the children, "I did, but I never got it. Now, both of you, shut up." A rare even when they traveled outside their small plot into the market as a family. One of the loose times where both siblings insisted that they did, and because their ninth birthday was approaching sooner than Azula would've liked, she relented in their pestering. She had taken them out to the market. The heat was bearable; in a matter of months the sudden change of weather would fall on top of them.

"Be frugal in your choosing," she said, "we don't have much."

"We know." The said in exasperated union, "Now, buy our gifts."

She frowned at them but said nothing. "What do you want? A doll or a cabbage?"

"A cabbage," Xin shook his head, "we don't like cabbage."

"You eat it?" Azula spat, "Don't you?"

"Only because you force us to," Jiao grumbled, "Don't think you can make cabbage cake."

An idea. It rose in that moment. When she turned to them, her lips mischievous, the children knew that they had said too much. They complained, ranted, and fumed while she bought the vegetables to make a steaming hot, cabbage cake. They watched and glared at her, pleaded during open moments and cursed in silent ones, but they eventually settled on the food in fuming silence. Azula smiled and gingerly laughed at their tormented expressions, more furious than tormented, but either one was fine to her.

"How does it taste, Jiao, Xin?" She snickered.

"You're so full of it," Xin hissed.

Jiao nodded, "But you could've used more sugar."

* * *

_**They belonged to her.**_

_**No Fire Lord, unnamed Father, or Avatar was going to change that.**_

_**She wasn't willing to give them back.**_

"Yes," she mused quietly, "I may have miscalculated...but...it's different now."

_If he had known, he would have taken them immediately. Zuzu has a weak heart; he couldn't bare separating a mother from her children. Nonetheless, his spies are incompetent._

Her eyes reread the letter in the brighter light of the back room. A lamp is placed overhead, and above she listened intently on the soft snoring of the children. She didn't want them to know, not yet, not until she made a solid decision. Again and again she reread the letter, her hands sweating but unrelenting in their grip.

_This is not an offer._

_You will report to the palace in three days._

_The carriage will be arriving the morning after this letter has been given to you_

She scoffed at her brother's attempt to be demanding. Even in his letter he sounded soft hearted and weak, but Azula knew the time had come. As she mused over her options, which were few, she knew it would be a waste of time and energy to pack up everything and leave.

_You could leave them. They're baggage anyway._

_**But they are mine...no one else can have them.**_

Her back fell on the wall of the dark room. It would be nice to return to her native land; it would be nice to live in the lavish and tedious lifestyle she had been raised in. In the nine, close to ten, years since she had been ripped of her title and succession rights, the government had changed. A bitter taste landed on her tongue, and she burned letter, throwing it into the lamp.

Either way, there was no escape for her.

"Get dressed, get ready, and eat." She shoved them off their cot, shaking them awake with rough jerks, "Did you hear me, get up."

"Wh-," Xin mumbled sleepily, "what's going on, 'Zula?"

"I'll explain once you are awake and dressed," she snapped at them, "now hurry!"

The children obeyed, but they shared curious glances as they hurried.

Their breakfast was considered weak by regular standards, but it was a bigger breakfast than what they were used to. They ate hastily, not wishing to anger the woman any further. She appeared agitated, uneasy, but it wasn't the first time she had woken them from a comfortable sleep in the early hours of the morning. This time, it wasn't one of her strange visions, she was conscious and aware. Her eyes darted from the window, to their meals, and she ate faster than normal. When they inquired again why she had woken them at such an hour, she merely swallowed her fish and sipped her tea.

"We're packed," Jiao said.

"And we're ready," Xin added.

"Did you pack everything? Did you use the facilities," her eyes crossed between them, "because there will be no stops where we are going."

"Where are we going?" Jiao asked, "We never left the village before."

Down the road she heard the stamping feet of approaching men, both man and beast. "Through all I've taught you, take this as the most important lesson. Grab your things, not that you're going to need them now.

"But you said-," she stopped Xin before he could say anymore. "Take what you want, but they may not let you keep them."

_Or maybe he will._

There wasn't any time left to explain, the troops had arrived in the front. Azula moved first, her chin held high and eyes glaring at the intruders. The children scuttled behind her, and they refused to show fear but held onto the hems of her dress.

"By the orders of Fire Lord Zuko," one man, dressed in the formal attire for a commanding officer shouted, "we have come to retrieve Princess Azula of the Fire Nation."

Obviously, they hadn't been expecting the children that were firmly planted on both of her sides. When one had the gall to approach her, reaching for the two, she released an inhuman snarl and swirls of azure lighting circled her hands. "As you can see, the medication that suppressed my bending abilities worn off long ago, you must thank these kiddies right here...for doing that."

"The children stay with me at all times," she sneered, "I will not hesitate breaking your necks."

"The Fire Lord did say he wanted her alive," another said aloud, "we can't kill her, especially not in front of the children."

The commanding officer frowned, and his frowned was bitter and angered. Azula smiled a pretty smile, a cruel, menacing smile, that made Jiao and Xin tug closer to her dress but more out of fear of her than the men dressed in Fire Nation attire. Xin was the one who peered up to her face, and he saw a life, a life that hadn't been there before, appeared to blink at him. Azure flames danced in her eyes, and he watched them swirl and cheer with glee.

"We're going to the Fire Nation," Jiao quipped, "we're really going to the Fire Nation?"

"Yes, yes," she snapped at them, "now, quit pulling my dress. Get your things and hurry on."

Xin and Jiao stared in wonder, but they knew better to question her. They rushed in the shack and returned quickly with bags that held few of their possessions.

"Are we going to come back," Xin eased in his seat, "will we see our friends again?"

Azula folded her arms on her laps, and she stared at the boy as if he was a scroll containing important information, "You must learn to let go of those who are not important for survival. These friends of yours will become dust of the past, wait and see."

That was the end of their discussion. As the minutes passed on into hours, Xin and Jaio slumbered together, their bodies entwined with the other. Azula watched them with a careful eye, to make sure they didn't fall off the carriage and into the dirt. Outside of the carriage that was roughly carried on the back of a camelephant, Azula listened closely to the insults and threats that were aimed at her. The callous words only made her grin in satisfaction. Times had changed, but so had she.

If things unraveled in her favor, she saw the brightness of the future in the two children who slept peacefully on the opposite side.

_You do not deserve them or their love, but aren't you happy that you have them?_

_**This will do for now.**_

* * *

**A/N: **This is the end, for now. There is potential to become a full fledge story, but that's up to you. Jiao and Xin are parts of the Chinese Azure Dragon Constellation: Jiao (Horn) and Xin (Heart). Di, Azula's allias, is the root of the constellation. I wanted to work with that. I wondered, "What kind of mother would Azula be?" This is just a give me chance, in a way. Give Azula a mothering chance. If you favorite, please leave a review. I appreciate all sorts of feedback, but reviews tell me what I have done wrong. Constructive Criticism is the savior for an author, and I reread this story myself so…yes, leave a review or two.

Considering what has happened to Azula, please tell me what you think of her characterization. I didn't want to make her too oc, but just enough to get the flow of the plot.

**Songs used while writing:** **Drumming **by **Florence and the Machine** (acoustic version) and **Thomas Newman's That Next Place**. I do not own either.

Thank you all, and have a great week!


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